


Follow

by themantlingdark



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 19:25:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16898496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themantlingdark/pseuds/themantlingdark
Summary: I can't disable commenting, but I would if I could. Please pretend that I have. And please don't repost or distribute my writing.





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1 Bargain

 

The realm feels barren.

The palace seems bloated and grotesque.

Thor is now painfully aware of every inch of it. He has sought his brother in each dark corner, all the old forgotten rooms, along quiet corridors, up and down endless stairs. In vaults, closets, and even cupboards, waiting for the wicked grin and the chuckled Found me, brother. It was fun while it lasted.

But it never came.

Thor spent the first two days vomiting, sweating, and sobbing.

He couldn't eat at the funeral feast, and he wouldn't have done so even if he had been physically able.

It would have been a betrayal to participate.

Thor was heartsick that everyone was so willing to mourn – so eager to believe Loki was dead – and to show this bare minimum of respect and remembrance before moving forward.

And they didn't even know who they were mourning.

Thor had only just found out himself, and couldn't bring himself to share it. Because it was like Loki was entirely his – the real Loki - and that secret was all Thor had left in this realm.

This unexpected brother.

A stolen Jotun who loved him boundlessly.

And Thor neglected him. Wounded him. With his arrogance and selfishness and stubbornness. Never heeding his sage advice. Belittling his sorcery.

Thor burdened his brother with a sense of inequality and inadequacy that Thor never even noticed, and therefore did nothing to allay.

And even at the end, Loki gave Thor so many ways out along the road to his banishment. But Thor was too bellicose to take them.

And finally, on the Bifrost, like a slap in the face, Loki's last secret leaking out as tears and the snarled curse that woman.

Thor thinks it's only fair that a lifetime of being lied to led Loki to take up lying. Let it never be said the Norns lack a sense of humor.

And Thor needs to apologize. Badly wants his words to be heard. He spends hours on his belly, beside Heimdall's boots, at the broken edge of the bridge, whispering his sins into the abyss - Heimdall will hear him anyway, so it makes no difference to Thor.

But Thor knows Loki isn't listening. Because Heimdall can't see Loki anywhere. Not even a body. He is between the realms. Even if the Bifrost were functional, it could not take Thor to him.

Thor wishes he had his brother's way with seidr. The skill and grace to step between the stars. Thor misses Loki's seidr - another part of his brother he took for granted.

Loki's magic was so often a soft and clever thing. Even in battle. A strangely gentle way to war.

But that all changed.

Loki ran out of softness. It never got him what he wanted. Quite the opposite.

Thor spends a week laying waste to Sif in the sparring arena. And she's furious with him. Not for besting her, but for going easy on her for all those centuries before.

Thor is just hoping it will let him sleep.

And it does, but sleep is not as restful as he would like.

His dreams are cruel.

He watches his brother fall again, several times each night. And that is agony. But worse are the quiet reveries where they sit by a stream, fishing and teasing each other. Or they walk through a wood. Or ride across meadows. And Loki's soft curls bounce at his sharp jaw and his eyes are bright with laughter and sunlight. Sometimes they swim. Or perch on a treetop and watch the moonrise as bats dip around their heads. Or they walk through a field at dusk and Thor looks on as his brother catches fireflies, cupping them in his hands briefly before opening them again to let the tiny creatures go.

And it's like nothing had ever gone wrong between them.

The beauty of that lie is unbearable to Thor.

It haunts him all day.

The lovely young man he drove to madness.

The wrong he cannot right.

Asgard is plagued by storms.

They're worse in the morning.

They follow Thor out onto the Bifrost as he makes his way to Heimdall to ask whether he has had any sign of Loki.

Thor sits in Loki's room every evening, hoping his mind will stumble upon a solution. Wishing Mjolnir could smash space and time and carry him to his brother. He thinks the hammer must know away, but it lacks the tongue to tell him.

Loki would know.

Thor remembers first seeing Loki's seidr. Being awed.

And jealous.

Frigga and Loki could speak to each other through this medium. They were linked by it in a way Thor never could be. Thor's magic was a strange thing. He could commune with the sky, but it only went one way: the sky didn't speak its secrets to him, didn't love him, didn't teach him. It belonged to him and it made him bigger, but left him quite alone.

The bigger Thor is, the more empty he feels. But it doesn't bother him, exactly. It feels apt. It means there is more of him that may ache. And Loki deserves that from him.

Each night Thor's dreams are more vivid.

More exquisite and excruciating.

Sometimes as Loki falls his eyes fill with fear and he screams Thor's name.

Sometimes Thor drops with his brother and everything goes dark.

Sometimes Thor watches as his brother is torn to pieces by the churning hole in the stars.

Sometimes Loki's body washes up on Asgard's shore in the morning, and Thor finds it, blue from drowning but otherwise looking whole and perfect, and Thor rocks the slender figure in his arms and begs Loki to wake up and start breathing as gulls scream overhead.

Sometimes Thor dreams that he opens his eyes and sees his brother's black curls spilling across the pillow in front of him. That he can smell them. See the bones of the neck reaching back to him. See a finger trailing one two three down over them, skin smooth and warm.

And the nightmares hurt more, for each night Thor has a better understanding of what he's losing as he watches his brother drop into the crumbling bridge of stars.

His love for Loki is like a wound, and every day it's deeper, because the happy dreams – the lies – would make Valhalla itself yearn for something half as sweet.

Thor hefts a sword in the sparring arena and thinks of Loki's lover.

The only one Thor knows about, anyway.

Tall and broad shouldered with a crown of ash blond curls. Beautiful by any measure. With a limp.

Not able to serve as a soldier, he was a smith, forging blades famed for their balance.

Thor would see Loki walking his young man home in the mornings. And every day the limp was a little better, and both their smiles were broader.

And one day the hitch in Egil's gait was gone.

And he became a soldier.

And died in a war.

Loki had been fighting by Thor's side.

He found his friend's body after the battle and carried him back. Built and burned his boat. Blamed himself.

Loki disappeared for over three years afterward.

Thor had once asked Loki how he and his lad most liked to make love, and Loki had laughed, supposing it was only fair, as he'd interrogated Thor quite impertinently after Thor started taking lovers.

“With kisses,” Loki answered.

“You only kiss?” Thor said, surprised, and Loki smirked.

“Our kisses are rather elaborate and tend to... wander.”

“Good,” Thor smiled, relieved that his brother was being properly loved. “Is it enough for you?”

“Plenty,” Loki chuckled.

“Sorry,” Thor said, shaking his head at himself. “Just... checking.”

“It's all right.”

“And... is he good to you? Kind when none can see?”

“Very,” Loki said.

Thor nodded his approval.

“Do you ever bed women?” Thor asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Asgard needs no heir from me," Loki shrugged. "I'll not pretend to enjoy something I do not.”

“Do you not find them beautiful?” Thor asked.

“As I do blossoms, and I've no need to bed those. Why do you not bed men?”

Thor hummed, nodded, and wondered.

And even now, entirely absent, Loki leaves his brother with new things to ponder.

Thor wonders if Egil's memories have somehow made their way to his own mind, and the dreams in which he sees his brother laid out on linen sheets are all that's left of their love. If these visions sought Thor's mind for safekeeping, unable to roost in Loki's absent soul.

Thor guards these dreams greedily and wishes for more, and at night they slip in behind his shuttered lids like answered prayers. And, though the cost is high, Thor is coming to believe that he is nevertheless getting a good bargain.

But some nights they are so real it frightens him - the hands on Loki's body are unmistakeably his own. And the visions fill him with a sense of urgency.

And regret.

For they are dreams, not memories. And needlessly, because Thor could have lived them. Saved them both so much pain.

But he wasn't paying attention. Always looking to his own future, he entirely missed what was present.

Thor can't believe his heart would continue to beat if his brother's pulse had ceased.

So Loki must be out there somewhere.

Trapped.

Thor can't find the answer.

He asks for help.

Odin looks older. Tired on the throne, shoulders sagging. He seems not to notice as Thor approaches the stair and drops to one knee.

“Father. Forgive me. I need to find him,” Thor says.

“Do you know what it is you ask?”

“No,” Thor admits. “And that is more than half of what I fear. The uncertainty.”

“There would be uncertainty even in sending you. I cannot see him - neither from this throne nor in my visions. Heimdall has had no sign of him. It's entirely possible the seidr would not be able to transcend the realms. And, even if it did, I can only send you there. Loki would need the strength to bring you both back. And he'd have to be willing. If he is dead, you can never come home. It's not a matter of being stranded for years, Thor. It would be forever. There are few with the strength to seek you, and those who possess it cannot be sacrificed to this. I could be sending you to a corpse, lad, and then I'll have lost both of my sons.”

“You already have,” Thor says gently. “This is your chance to get them back. There can be no loss in this, but there could be gain. If I die, it will be for my brother. I would find peace in that at least.”

Odin stares at Thor.

The king's face is soft. His son's is grim. Haunted.

Odin sighs.

“The Norns can only be bought with blood,” Odin warns.

“They shall have it,” Thor says. 

Thor looks relieved when Sif sees him the next morning, walking out to meet her on her way to spar.

“Has something happened?” she asks, and Thor throws his arm around her shoulder.

“Not yet,” Thor says. “But it will.”

“What does that mean?”

“I'm going after him.”

Sif spins to stand in front of Thor and stops him with a palm to each shoulder.

“You can't be serious,” she gasps. “How can you put your parents through this again?”

“My life is mine to live and lose.”

“Thor, listen to yourself. What of Asgard? The throne? Haven't you sacrificed enough for him-”

Sif stops herself when she sees Thor's jaw go tight.

She has not forgiven Loki, but she knows Thor always will.

“You followed me to Jotunheim,” Thor reminds her. “Gave me loyalty when I didn't deserve it. So did he. And I owe it to him now. I'm still in his debt. He was right about me. Knew me better than I knew myself.”

“Does he know himself?”

“If he does not, he has good reason. I know him - he's my brother. And if I've fallen from his favor, the fault is my own. Neglect is a type of abuse. I starved him, Sif.”

“Thor, it's suicide. He will kill you.”

“He already has,” Thor says, and Sif sighs.

“What do you have to do?” she asks.

“There's a spell. Father warned me not to expect it to work, so I'll say farewell to you now, my friend.”

They embrace and weep onto each other's shoulders.

She can't blame Thor, as much as she wants to make him stay. They have been as close as kin all their lives, and she knows that if Thor were in Loki's place, she would be begging the Allfather's aid in seeking him.

“Wish me luck,” Thor whispers. “But don't let yourself hope.”

She nods.

Thor spends the rest of the morning saying farewell to his friends and then heads to Loki's room to gather what he needs.

He carefully unmakes the bed and searches the sheets. Goes to the closet and rifles through clothes. Sweeps the floor. Checks under all the furniture. Picks through Loki's brush and comb. He comes away with a few dozen hairs from his brother's scalp.

Not much. He coils them into a tiny vial, stoppers it, and puts it in a pouch on his belt.

He takes a sharp knife from Loki's wall, goes to his own room, dons his armor, ties Mjolnir to his hip, and makes his way to the throne.

His mother is waiting for him at the door. He gives her a tired smile and she takes his arm as they cross the hall. Odin descends the stair to meet them and then leads them back through corridors and out into an enclosed garden. In its center is a small dais of glossy black stone. The top has elaborate carvings along its perimeter.

The sky above is clear and calm. Sunny. Bright. Odin had expected a storm, but Thor is calm.

Thor pictured this happening at night, but he knows he'll soon have more than enough darkness, so he lets himself enjoy what might be the last of the sun.

He hugs his mother tightly and kisses her cheeks.

She takes a gold locket from her neck and puts it around his. When he opens it to peek inside he finds a wispy curl of soft black hair tied in place with gold ribbon: the first lock Frigga ever cut from Loki's head.

A thousand years old. Thor can still smell his brother on the strands.

Frigga reaches into her pocket and pulls out a tiny silver box. Thor can hear something rattling inside as she sets it in his palm. When he pulls off the lid he smiles: Loki's baby teeth, tiny, bright white, and still stained with dry blood on the undersides, because Loki always teased them out a little early. He closes the tin tightly and sets it in the pouch that hangs at his hip and holds the strands of hair from Loki's room.

Then Frigga takes a tiny knife from her pocket, shears off a long lock of her hair, and braids it into Thor's own.

“Mama,” Thor whispers, and embraces her again. “Thank you.”

When Thor turns to his father, Odin takes Thor's face in has hands and makes himself memorize every wrinkle, eyelash, and whisker.

“Are you certain?” Odin says.

“Aye.”

Odin nods and hugs his boy close.

And then Thor steps up onto the low disk of stone and kneels within the ring of runes that run along its edge. He takes Loki's knife from his belt. He doesn't want to be cruel, but he has no room for error.

“Loki Friggajarson,” Thor says, and raises the knife.

Blood drips down, a heavy patter, and flows though the little channels that are carved into the stone, slowly encircling Thor.

He looks at his parents.

Odin is ashen.

Frigga's face is strange, and hidden from her husband's eye by a curtain of blond.

Her lips are tight, but not from stifling tears, for her eyes are bright and clear.

She winks.

So it's a grin she's suppressing.

Thor barks a wet laugh and then he's gone.

  
  


2 The Catch

 

Heat stings Thor's eyes when he opens them. A jagged block of roughly chiseled stone glows a dull red in front of him. He's in a cavern, beside a lava flow, deep underground.

He's still spinning from the journey.

The spell seemed to tear him into tiny pieces and then reassemble them here, but not before stretching the specks of him until they screamed. He feels weirdly violated. Nauseated. Nervous he'll look down and find his feet on backward, a hole in his chest, or something similarly absurd.

But it's more than nerves and nausea that are unsettling his stomach.

There's a smell, at once foreign and familiar.

Thor circles the block of stone to get a better look around the cave.

He sees only one way in and relaxes slightly. No one will be sneaking up on him. He lets his boots scrape the rocks beneath his feet and then hears the clink of metal on metal.

Thor goes still and his pulse quickens.

He can't see the top of the block beside him from the ground. It's still a good six feet over his head.

He swings Mjolnir softly and tosses her into the air, landing on the edge of the stone.

The spell that brought Thor to this place was precise.

Loki is stretched out on the rock. His limbs are bound by heavy chains. The shackles at his wrists and ankles are covered with strange runes and there's a gag on his mouth, similarly adorned.

He's coated in blood and filth that have been half washed away by sweat, leaving his skin streaked and revealing bits of wounds and bruises. His eyes look wild. Horrified. He's shaking his head rapidly from side to side, a vibration of nonononono.

Thor reaches to remove the gag.

“No,” Loki rasps, thrashing. “You fool. What have you done? Let me be.”

But Thor just shakes his head no before stooping to examine Loki's bonds.

“They're going to make me a king again, damn you,” Loki hisses. “Will you take it from me once more? Is this the only way it is ever meant to go for me?”

Thor's face twists with anger and he holds up the chains that bind his brother's bruised and wasted limbs.

A king? Thor mouths, and Loki's brow crumples.

“What did you do?” Loki whispers, and squints at the blood on Thor's front. “Thor? How did you get here?”

Thor just waves off Loki's questions and tugs experimentally at the point where a chain is bolted into the rock. It doesn't budge. He gives it a tap with his hammer and sees it loosen slightly, sending little flecks of stone scattering and tiny fractures radiating. He smiles and taps it again, crouching over it to muffle the sound as best he can and then wiggling the post up out of the stone. He wants to be able to fly Loki away if he must, but he's afraid he'll crush his brother's bones if he smashes the shackles. And Loki isn't quite ready to cooperate.

“Thor, please. This is all I have left. I'm so close. He's going to tell me what I need to do soon.”

Thor shakes his head no and sets to work on the rest of the chains.

“Why are you doing this?” Loki whispers. “What do you want? Am I to be brought before the Allfather to face Asgard's justice?”

Thor knocks out the last post, crouches at his brother's side, and shakes his head no again.

“I'm not even your brother,” Loki says, eyes wide and head slowly shaking, as though he still can't quite believe it himself. “I'm a Frost Giant. I'm not Aesir. I don't belong in Asgard. And I can hardly go to Jotunheim. It was all a lie. Leave me here. Let me go. It's better this way.”

Thor shakes his head no once more and Loki can see tears in Thor's eyes. And Loki thinks that's typical; it's all either of them seems to be good for anymore.

“What do you want from me?” Loki asks.

Come home, Thor mouths, and reaches to touch his brother's face. And Loki flinches. And Thor's eyes well over.

Even Loki's teeth look bruised, covered in dry blood and set in gums that are shrunken and angry.

“Leave me,” Loki pleads, but Thor's lips shape the word No and then curve into a soft smile.

He sits down and tugs Loki onto his lap. Peels the matted hair off of his face. And Loki knows he is filthy and reeking but Thor's nose never wrinkles and his hands never shy from the grime. He never was squeamish.

Loki's eyelids are drooping for the first time since he fell.

He's had to watch his own back all these months. He couldn't afford to let his guard down around the Chitauri. Most of his magic was hobbled by the shackles and gag, but the Aesir skin Odin gave him remained, and the seidr he was born with was unaffected: he could call ice and chill his enemies if he needed to, but it made the heat of this cave even more unbearable. Loki can barely stand it as it is. He wonders if Thanos knows of his parentage now that he's frozen a few dozen Chitauri for coming too close. The thought makes Loki itch. He likes his secrets – no one can know what to expect if they don't know what you're capable of.

But now Thor is here to watch, and the sight and scent of him still speak to Loki of safety. Centuries of that sentiment are not so easily undone.

“How are you getting home?” Loki murmurs, lulled by the way Thor's thumb is rubbing the back of his neck.

Thor inclines his head toward Loki and he taps Loki's sternum with his index finger.

You, Thor mouths.

“What?” Loki hisses. “He sent you here to trap me? To use you against me? Force me to come home to spare you-”

No, Thor mouths, shaking his head.

And Thor hates that that's the answer. That Odin never wanted to send Thor here. That their father would have left Loki like this.

Thor points to himself and then pulls the locket out of his collar.

“Mama,” Thor says and opens it, leaning down to let Loki see the tiny lock of black hair held inside.

Loki's nostrils twitch. His mouth pulls into a thin line and clean tracks of skin appear beneath the corners of his eyes.

Loki had prayed for a way to beg Frigga's pardon.

He supposes he should have known the Norns' answer would come with a catch.

Thor tucks the necklace back under his shirt and stares at the cuff on Loki's left wrist. There's a strange keyhole. Thor taps it three times and waits for Loki's eyes to meet his own. Loki sighs.

“He has the key. But he has a weapon. A mess of magic. Marvelous thing. It isn't finished. I'd very much like to steal it,” Loki murmurs, trailing off and then shaking himself. “But he's already too strong. We'd be fools to fight him without more allies. And we need all our strength if we're to leave here. But, the lock is not of seidr. It's the runes that bind me. Your wife should work.”

Thor smirks, sets Loki down, and takes up his hammer. And he doesn't call a storm exactly, but one seems to well up from within him and his eyes glow.

Thor jams the tip of his little finger into the keyhole of the cuff and releases his tiny tempest. Then he tips the shackle over and the pins pour out onto the ground like sand.

Loki brings the raw skin of he newly-freed wrist to his lips.

Thor's seidr wasn't loud, but he can hear footsteps approaching. Not hurried, but hardly dawdling.

Loki tosses his head to his side, wordlessly instructing Thor to lie flat beside him so he won't be seen until the last minute.

He's mine, Loki mouths, and Thor nods.

They lie there listening to the approaching footsteps, which quicken as they draw close, and then a being Thor has never seen before leaps up onto the rock before them.

A spear of ice goes through the figure's gaping mouth and out the back of its head. There's a crunching sound as the guard's body drops backward off of the rock and hits the ground below.

“Won't be another for at least ten minutes,” Loki says.

Thor resumes his destruction of the locks.

Loki wonders whether his seidr will be strong enough to bear them home, or if they'll be stranded in some other pocket of the void between the realms. He wonders if it will be another place like this.

Or worse.

He won't risk it.

Thor has Loki's limbs free and is staring unhappily at the skin of Loki's ankles and wrists - the raw wounds where the cuffs have worn the flesh away - when they hear booming footsteps barreling toward them through the tiny tunnel.

Thor turns and throws Mjolnir across the cavern, smashing the rock above the entry so that it crumbles down and and bars the way, but it won't hold for long. They can hear the rubble being pulverized on the other side.

Thor looks to Loki and Loki beckons Thor down beside him, hands a blur.

“Call her magic and give it to me,” Loki whispers, frantic, and Thor raises his hammer until its seidr seems to sweat from his skin.

And they've done this before. Just to see if they could. One of Loki's fondest memories.

“Asgard,” Loki says. “Think of nothing else.”

Thor nods, puts his mouth over his brother's, and breathes Mjolnir's magic into Loki's lungs.

Thanos roars and the brothers' eyes glow blue as they cling to each other.

But they're too panicked to remember their realm.

In their worry for each other they offer up the prayer of every fearful child.

Frigga's sons appear at her feet, a motionless jumble of red and blue.

  
  


3 Delegation

 

Thanos often ventures out into the realms, and Odin and Heimdall watch him closely. They see his weapon – a gauntlet, and they see him stealing out in search of the stones to set in it. He has the gem of power already and is seeking space. It will not be long before he has it, and then he will be able to slip between the realms with ease. If he finds the time gem, he will have all he needs to grant his lady's wish.

Where others would worry, Odin merely sighs.

Frigga smirks.

There are many who wonder what she sees in her husband.

If anyone ever had the nerve to ask her, she would tell them He is wild, wily, very nearly fearless, and he gave me two marvelous sons. Which is not to says it's always easy -  he is all too often an idiot - but I'm never bored.

But she knows not even Loki would dare question her here.

Odin is the god of many things.

War and battle.

Victory.

Death.

And there are now two who are encroaching on all of these aspects of Odin.

They would declare war, face him in battle, take victory from his hard jaw, and end at least half of all life.

But everybody wants something. And Odin's eye sees far beneath the skin.

Odin meets with Mistress Death and delivers a warning.

He tells her they could go to battle first thing in the morning, and, though Thanos is strong, he is not yet strong enough to defeat Odin and all of his allies.

That Thanos would fall.

And, when he did, he would belong to Odin, whether Odin was still alive or not.

That, if Odin survived the war and Mistress Death came for him, she would only render Odin stronger. In life he will always be vulnerable to her, but in death she could not hope to match him, for there he would still be the god of war, battle, victory, and death, whereas Death and Thanos would be mere spirits, helpless before him like dry leaves in high winds.

He reminds her that her existence is a fragile flickering thing - that the split second when life ends and the heart ceases to beat is all that belongs to her. The souls themselves are not her realm.

Odin explains that he has the power to take life, too, but has found he has no need; living things are often intent upon ending one another, and he is forever hoping they'll have a change of heart.

But Odin warns Death that he is a capricious creature, and he could bring about an ending that would end her.

That, if all life were extinguished, Death herself would cease to exist. Odin's wicked old soul, on the other hand, would still reign in his hall: he has only ever had one foot in the lands of the living.

“What would you have me do?” she asks.

“Take his life,” Odin says, “And I will grant his spirit to you if you wish it.”

 

4 Hatchling

 

When Loki opens his eyes he sees the ceiling of Valaskjálf.

I'm dead, Loki thinks.

But Odin couldn't let me into Valhalla if I didn't die in battle.

I must have done something worthy.

Perhaps I saved Thor... or inadvertently killed Thanos.

Possibly both.

The thoughts cheer Loki slightly.

He tries to lift his head but finds he isn't able.

He falls asleep again.

He wakes soon after to footsteps.

Familiar ones.

Thor's.

Loki wants to weep.

So he's here, too.

I didn't save him after all.

I killed us both.

I failed him.

And then Thor's face is above him and Thor shouts. There's something strange about the sound. Loki can't quite put his finger on it.

And he can see Thor's breath, as though it's grown cold in Asgard.

Thor is grinning madly and Loki watches the tears pour down his brother's cheeks and drip onto him.

When Thor takes Loki's hand and kisses it, Loki is stunned, though not by the kiss.

He can see his skin has shifted Jotun. But it doesn't burn his brother. Loki tries to flex his fingers and his seidr, but nothing happens. His hand is still limp and blue in Thor's grip. There are no wounds or bandages at his wrist from where he was cut by his shackles.

Loki hears more footsteps and Thor turns and makes a few quick gestures with his hands.

“Aye, my lord,” says an unseen man with a deep voice.

Guard, Loki guesses. We're not dead, then... but Thor is king.

“What's happened?” Loki asks.

His tongue feels clumsy and his mouth is dry. The words come out as a mumbled whisper.

Thor reaches to Loki's left and Loki turns his head to look, but it takes all his strength to do so and then he can't raise it up again.

Thor takes a goblet from a table laden with medical supplies and then he carefully straightens Loki out, cups the back of his skull, and tips his head forward so that he can pour water into Loki's mouth. Swallowing is difficult, and hurts at first, but gets better after the fourth gulp. Loki drains the glass and wonders what his brother is so excited about.

A few moments later Loki hears soft footfalls at the far end of the hall.

Quick pace.

Light steps.

Rustling skirts.

Nearly running.

And Thor is on his feet and turning.

“Mama,” the brother's chime, and Frigga's face splits into a grin and she's on her knees and Loki tosses his head to his right to see her at the bedside.

Her fingers thread through his hair and she's crying and laughing all at once and he can never help himself when she smiles at him like this; he joins her.

She leans forward and her hair spills down around his face while she covers his cheeks in kisses.

It must be very early morning, Loki realizes.

His mother's hair is undone and she's only half dressed, wearing petticoats with a dressing gown thrown over the top. He hasn't seen her like this in centuries.

And Loki feels a bit stupid, for all he can do is blink up at her and purse and pucker his lips in her direction until she takes his head in her hands and tips it up and sets her cheek before his mouth so he can kiss her properly. His limbs are all leaden.

And she looks beautiful.

And so does Thor.

But there's something different about them.

Loki falls asleep before he figures out what it is.

When he wakes he feels odd.

His belly is full.

So is his bladder.

He tosses his head to the side and sees Thor sitting beside him with two empty bowls of what was probably a thick savory puree.

Loki sighs.

“I need to piss.”

Thor nods and grabs an absurdly pretty little chamber pot. He tips Loki onto his side, draws the sheet back and then Loki feels something odd. Smallclothes being removed. He's never worn them in his life. And these felt so bulky. Thor holds the bowl in place.

Loki is squeezing for all he's worth but he can hear that he's only managing a trickle.

Thor pushes in on the base of Loki's belly and that helps.

Nevertheless, Loki is panting from the exertion. And he still can't shift his skin.

“What's the matter with me?” Loki gasps.

Thor squeezes his hip, turns him onto his back once more, and covers him with the sheet again. And Loki can see Thor getting rid of the smallclothes.

But they're not smallclothes.

Loki wants to weep and then promptly die: it was a diaper.

Loki gapes. Thor lies down and starts reading.

They're on the large dais beside the throne, behind the torch. There's a pretty screen that shields them from view. Loki is in a lovely bed, narrow, but soft. Beside him is the table with all the healing accoutrements and beyond it there's a military campaign cot. Just linen stretched between wood and a small pillow at the top. Thor is stretched out on it with his book on his chest.

He looks happy. And something else. Loki stares.

“Your hair is too long,” Loki says. “Is that a wig?”

Thor frowns and shakes his head.

Loki's stomach drops.

There's a small clock at the bedside. It reads three.

“Is it afternoon or morning?” Loki asks.

Morning, Thor mouths, and all the pieces fall into place.

Loki weeps for hours and chants no until his voice has all but left him.

Thor has been expecting this, but that makes it no less unpleasant. And he knows his brother. This will get worse before it gets better.

“How long?” Loki rasps.

Thor picks up a piece of slate set in a wooden frame and writes on it with chalk, then holds it up for Loki to see.

100 years.

Thor gives his brother water so he'll have fuel for fresh tears, then goes to sit on the throne and grant Loki slightly more space without putting him out of earshot.

Hordes of horrors march through Loki's mind.

His mother comes in at six in the morning.

“Tell me,” Loki whispers.

Frigga fills him in for hours.

She tells him that they came back whole, but Loki exhausted himself getting them to Asgard.

Thor slept for a week and woke groggy and nauseated but otherwise well.

But Loki showed no signs of following suit.

At first, they thought it was like one of Odin's infamous slumbers.

But then Loki started wasting.

His blood came.

His belly gurgled.

He was not in hibernation.

Thor grew panicked and possessive.

So Frigga taught Thor the seidr.

He learned to draw the runes in a wide dish of sand because he couldn't speak them. This is what wands are for. Thor's is a simple one – a slender bit of wood stained black and tipped with gold.

Thor wrote out the spells to put food and water in Loki's belly. To place protections on him. To pour strength into him. To grant him pleasant dreams.

He brought The Casket up and set it under Loki's bed in the hope that its power might leach out into its rightful owner's sleeping form.

Frigga tells him that Thor spent hours every morning stretching Loki's limbs and digits and massaging his muscles so his hands wouldn't be curled into useless claws when he woke up. Bathing him with snow. Rubbing oil into his skin. Checking him for bedsores.

That Thor had no way of knowing if or when Loki would wake up.

“If he's been feeding me, I've been pissing and shitting,” Loki whispers.

“Aye,” Frigga shrugs.

“Can healers handle me in this skin?”

“No,” Frigga says. “All but the gods are burned by a Frost Giant's touch.”

“So, Thor's been...”

“Who else?” Frigga laughs. “I've changed enough of your diapers in my day. No one else could touch you, apart from Odin, Heimdall, and Sif. Would you have preferred that they tended to you?”

Loki ponders this a moment. He thinks they certainly deserve to wipe his ass.

But no. Thor is the only acceptable attendant.

Loki is no less mortified.

It must show on his face.

“Oh, don't be so prudish,” Frigga chides. “You know what Thor's like. There is nothing about bodies that bothers your brother.”

“He's seen me at my worst.”

“He's seen you at your best.”

Loki's muscles have atrophied despite Thor's best efforts. He's as weak as a hatchling.

He realizes Thor now knows all the oddities of his anatomy. His quim. His menses.

He's afraid everyone knows.

When Loki found out, it was just one hit in a barrage of blows.

Jotun.

Abandoned.

Adopted.

Disguised.

Dismissed.

His genitals were the least of his concerns.

And for the months he spent strapped to the rock in dead space with Chitauri creeping around, the funny secret hidden beneath the skin Odin gave him brought him a strange comfort.

Made him feel closer to his mother.

It was merely another way he was like her.

Another way he was hers.

Still. He hadn't planned on sharing it any time soon.

“Does everyone know what I am?” Loki asks.

“They know you are Jotun. They still have no idea what that means.”

“Why didn't you shift my skin for me?”

“I tried,“ Frigga tells him. “It wouldn't last while you were unconscious. You'd shift for a moment as I set the seidr on you, and then you'd fade right back to blue. So instead we set a spell to keep the air around you cool. Thor liked that your skin meant no one could lay a hand on you.”

“So I was his captive ambassador?" Loki says. "His mascot?”

“You've been behind the screen.”

“Sideshow then.”

“Hush,” Frigga chuckles. “He went to Jotunheim, you know. Asked for forgiveness. And aid for you. Argued for an alliance.”

“Did it work?”

“No,” Frigga sighs. “But he's still angling for it.”

“Where has Odin been?”

“He's kept busy. Disposed of Thanos. Snuck a weapon out of Midgard. Mended the Bifrost. Repaired holes that had been ripped in the edges of the realms. He spends much of his time hunting and reminiscing with Odr and Freyr. He stepped down soon after you returned so he'd be free to come and go without leaving the throne empty. We've had a century of peace.”

“That sounds like a challenge,” Loki smirks, and Frigga swats him softly before kissing his forehead farewell and leaving him to his thoughts.

Loki's thoughts are largely of Thor.

Of what Thor paid to get Loki back home.

It was a wise choice, but Loki finds little comfort in that.

Odin had to lose an eye to gain sight, but eyesight would have been a dangerous thing for a young warrior to willingly lose before he walked into what may well have been a battle. Sacrificing a limb would have been too dangerous – would have left Thor weak and unbalanced when he couldn't afford to be either. It would have been foolish for Thor to render himself deaf, as failing to listen had long been one of his faults. But he knew he needed a fair amount of blood for this spell to work. So Thor cut out his own tongue in order to speak to his brother again.

Loki weeps silently. When his tears run out they leave parched and angry earth in their wake.

Loki is furious that this is the only sort of seidr Odin knows – strong, yes, but brutish.

Graceless.

Ugly.

Desperate.

Violent.

Bloody.

Always a sacrifice.

Loki has had enough of that word. Of that payment.

And now Loki is trapped again. Bound, and not even by chains. By his own body. His own life. His brother's love.

Thor comes in with their dinner.

“Let me rot,” Loki says. “Or help me die.”

No, Thor mouths. And even without sound, it is absolute. Still the voice of a king. Of a god.

There will be no dying today. Or possibly ever. Thor is stubborn.

And Thor is smiling stupidly at everything

No, Loki thinks. Smiling serenely. Beautifully. At me.

Loki is impressed that one who can't speak can rule. Such a strange king. The motionless body of his fickle brother, blue by his side for a century.

Loki is stubborn, too. Won't eat.

Thor holds up his wand and threatens to feed him with the spell.

You need to use your body, Thor writes.

And Loki sees the wisdom in this. The sooner he can move, the sooner he can leave.

He opens his mouth.

Thor looks impossibly happy. It breaks Loki's heart.

And afterward Thor helps Loki with the chamber pot again. Wipes his ass.

It takes all of Loki's willpower not to weep at how pathetic he feels.

But then Thor bathes him and puts him to bed. And it's soothing, though that only makes Loki feel lower. To get such depth of pleasure from something so simple. From something Thor has done thousands of times over the last century as Loki slept.

And it doesn't feel like Thor is moving mechanically. He keeps looking up at Loki and smiling. The motions of his hands feel affectionate. Frequently far from practical. Lots of pats and squeezes.

He leans down to kiss Loki's forehead before lying down to sleep on his cot.

Loki wonders if the kisses are new, or if he's had 36,500 of them that he can't remember.

Loki keeps eating.

His seidr is weak. He can feel it coiled limply around him. He can call ice, but that's useless. He still can't shift into Aesir skin: he watches the bridge of his nose as he tries. It remains blue.

Frigga stays with Loki so that Thor can leave to bathe and dress.

Loki watches his brother closely. All of Thor's meals are liquid. He has to tips his head back to toss the food down his throat to swallow. Like a bird.

The wings on Thor's helm seems like a mock to Loki now.

Loki is learning to chew again. Slowly getting stronger. He can shift his limbs slightly. Turn his head.

His menses begin and he aches.

Thor expertly massages his belly. Brings him a draught to dull the pain. Keeps his skin clean and dry.

Thor watches Loki like a hawk and Loki supposes he should be grateful. Satisfied. It's what he always wanted, or the shadow of it, anyway. He wanted rather different circumstances. Still, it's not so bad. Thor isn't coddling him. Isn't condescending

Frigga was right: Thor is entirely indifferent to all the oddities of the body. Never frowns or sighs or wrinkles his nose. Never rushes or scolds. He's weirdly gentle despite the roughness of his hands... and Loki's rudeness.

A month into his recovery, Thor is giving Loki a bath and Loki finally gets an erection. Thor cheers.

He'd be a marvelous father, Loki realizes, and the thought makes him weep, largely because he doesn't know what to do with the knowledge.

It's wonderful, Thor writes, worried. You haven't managed it all these years. I feared for you.

Loki sighs and rolls his watery eyes.

And Thor isn't even angry or disgusted, though the brushes of his hands over Loki's body were very obviously the source of Loki's excitement.

Loki shuts his eyes and turns his head away, feigning shame to conceal his frustration.

Thor huffs a laugh and finishes putting Loki to bed.

Loki still catches Thor gazing at him intently, motionless and silent, as though he's afraid he'll frighten Loki away, or that if he blinks his brother will vanish.

The fear is well founded.

As Loki grows stronger, Thor takes him swimming. It improves Loki's range of motion and his endurance. And he loves to escape the palace. He's sick of the sight of the ceiling.

He likes the cool water against his skin. Thor's fingertips a line of warm points along his spine. The feeling of his own hair floating and swirling around him – long because it's been left up to Thor and Thor won't cut it for him anymore. He wrote that Loki would have to work up the strength to do it himself.

Thor gives Loki books: Learning American Sign Language, and American Sign Language Dictionary. Cheap Midgardian bindings. Well-thumbed.

Loki's seidr is finally getting stronger now that his form can function. He's siphoning magic from The Casket and from the rest of the realms again.

Thor begins walking him through Valaskjalf when they have the hall to themselves. He weeps joyfully when Loki finally manages to do a lap unaided.

After that, Loki progresses by leaps and bounds.

And then he vanishes.

 

5 Failing

 

Thor supposes that this is what one is meant to hope for.

When you raise an orphaned bird, you want it to be able to care for itself. To need you no longer.

He should be happy for his brother.

But he worries.

Loki has hidden himself from sight. If he needs help, Thor won't know it.

Thor moves back into his old room, but it doesn't matter. He can't sleep.

A century spent listening to the lullaby of Loki's perfectly even breathing is something Thor's ears cannot easily forget.

Loki paces the realm for weeks.

He won't slip between the stars again now that he knows what lies hidden there.

But the Bifrost is mended.

The cage door is open.

Yet there's nowhere he wants to go, and anyway he can't bear to bring himself near the bridge.

It's a monument to my failure, he thinks.

Failures, he corrects, as vicious with himself as with anyone.

It's the road to Jotunheim, where I failed to die by Laufey's hand.

The path to battle where I failed to save Egil.

The weapon with which I failed to end Jotunheim and failed Odin's test of my readiness for the throne.

The means by which I sent The Destroyer to Midgard to murder my brother.

The place I fought and failed to kill Thor again.

Where I failed to die by my own hand.

When Loki's reality crumbled, so did his will to live. And, not wanting to live, he wanted Thor to die too. He's never understood why, entirely, but it still makes a sort of sense to him.

And then Thor literally asked him to take his life to end the mess he'd made, and Loki badly wanted it to be over.

All of it.

So he tried.

But it didn't work.

So he kept trying.

Tried to kill Thor again.

Failed.

Tried to kill himself.

Failed.

Tried to start over.

Failed.

Tried to resist his brother's warmth.

Failed.

Then failed in strength and lived a century as an infant while the King of Asgard served as his nurse.

And now he's so ashamed.

Over a thousand years old and he has nothing to show for himself but a string of disasters and a love he doesn't deserve.

He wants what he does deserve.

But he knows he can't give it to himself.

His touch is cursed.

He'll only fail again.

He's tired of falling short.

Thor always seems to see things through.

Loki will take advantage of that.

Thor is on the throne, though it's the dead of night.

He can't sleep, so he tries to be useful.

He watches the realms.

He'll fly out into fields at five in the morning to help elk that have mired themselves in muck. Or move rocks that have rolled down mountainsides and blocked roads. Or mend bridges that look less stable than he'd like.

Still, he isn't entirely surprised when finds himself face down on the hard floor of the hall with a boot-heel in his back.

“Come on, damn you,” Loki snarls, pushing off roughly and dealing a parting kick to Thor's side.

Thor climbs to his feet and Loki smashes him in the temple with a staff, sending blood pulsing down Thor's cheek and into his collar.

Thor grabs Mjolnir from his hip and uses her as a shield.

Loki's weapon is nothing special. Just a well made piece from the armory. It sparks and bends when it bounces off of the hammer's head as Loki tries to land a hit to Thor's neck.

Thor backs away and grabs his chalkboard to begin writing, but Loki shatters it with seidr.

Thor starts signing instead, so Loki binds his brother's arms with ice.

“No, no. You're perfect like this,” Loki hisses. “You gave yourself a tongue to match your wit.”

Loki drops his spear and strides over to deal a vicious hook to Thor's jaw. And another. And another. Eventually his knuckles are bleeding and his arm is tired and he's just smashing Thor with his open palm over and over until he's gasping. Then he switches to his left.

And Thor could break the ice on his arms and start swinging. Could kick Loki. Or back away. But he doesn't do anything and the blows barely move him. The only indication of his state of mind comes from the thunder outside.

Loki cocks an ear.

“Still just a beast, aren't you?” Loki pants. “No, not even a dog would take a beating like this. You're some elemental thing. Like dirt. Or stone. Motionless. Mute. Dumb.”

Loki releases Thor's arms from their cage of ice.

Thor is shaking. With what, Loki isn't sure.

And Thor starts signing again, so Loki sticks a knife in Thor's side.

“Fight me, you idiot,” Loki begs. “Finish it.”

Thor shakes his head no and Loki slaps him.

“Do it,” Loki snarls, and sticks another knife in Thor's ribs.

Blood sprays Loki's face when Thor gasps.

Loki grabs Thor's right wrist and raises Thor's arm so that Mjolnir is at his own temple.

“Do it,” Loki screams, and twists the knife in Thor's side with his free hand.

Thor closes his hand over Loki's fist and pulls the blade from his side, then raises it to look at the weapon.

It is beautiful.

And only made more so, somehow, with it's bright glaze of blood. The red warmth runs down the hilt and onto their joined hands, flowing through the seams between their fingers.

Thor centers the point of the blade over his own heart, stares at his brother, and waits.

“Why can't you give this to me? Why do you keep me here?”

Thor's mouth draws into a tight line.

You're my brother, Thor tries to say, but r and t are impossible now.

“I don't want garbled lies from your mangled mouth,” Loki scoffs. “This infantile babble. And the squeak of chalk on your slate is even worse.”

Thor's nostril's flare.

“Put an end to this,” Loki begs, and sinks the blade into Thor's breast.

Thor shakes his head no.

Loki pierces Thor's skin over and over, but still Thor won't stop him.

Thor is looking over Loki's shoulder with a thin frown that's almost a smile – an apology.

“Mama,” Thor says, and Loki stills as Thor falls to his knees.

When Loki turns his head he sees Frigga at the far end of the hall, silhouetted in the doorway.

Loki drops to the ground, frantic, and starts undoing all the damage he's done to his brother.

He hears the door slam and fast footsteps on the floor: Frigga is running.

Loki has Thor's chest mended and is working on the mess he made of Thor's face. But he knows he won't be finished in time to flee before she gets to him, so he's crying.

The wound in Thor's temple is closing as the queen catches Loki by the throat and throws him up onto the throne.

“There,” she spits. “It's yours. And you will bear this for him. And you will do it perfectly, do you understand me?”

Loki can only nod.

Thor is still on his back, blinking up at the ceiling.

Frigga crouches and takes Thor's hand and then they both disappear.

When Loki looks he can no longer see into Thor's room: Frigga has warded it from sight.

6 Watching

 

Loki casts a spell to clean up the blood on the floor. He expects the guards to come for him, but they never do. He owes his mother apologies he can never make.

He owes his brother more.

From Hlidskjalf Loki can see Odin walking down the hall to Thor's room.

This is the first he's seen of the Allfather. He looks older. Thor and Frigga merely have more hair, but Odin has aged.

A guilty conscience takes its toll, as Loki knows all too well.

Loki watches the realms.

There are always so many tiny things going wrong. He isn't certain how to determine when he should intervene. And he's fearful that if he leaves, he'll miss something else that's of greater consequence.

He sends clones bearing spells to mend what he can.

His form is still weak from his century of sleep, but his seidr is strong again.

He wants to sleep but fears he'll be needed.

Then he fears he'll be delirious and make a bad decision if he doesn't get rest.

And this is what awaits a king.

This is what Thor was meant for - his inheritance was a burden of unimaginable weight.

An Allfather's firstborn is merely fodder for the throne.

And it occurs to Loki that, if his own fate is that of failure, then Thor's is that of sacrifice.

The throne is a prison; being second born was a gift.

Thor and Frigga tell no one of Loki's latest lapse. Loki knows this because Sif is civil to him, bowing and asking if there is anything she may do for him.

He sends her to the sparring grounds to interrupt a match that's about to round the corner from practice into battle.

Loki sees Frigga making her way to Thor's room bearing baskets laden with towels, oils, and Idunn's apples.

She's not going to let a healer see what I've done to him, Loki realizes. She's going to knead all the knots out of him herself.

Thor feels like a child. It is slightly embarrassing, largely because the sensation is so welcome.

What hurts? Frigga signs, sitting on the edge of his bed.

My heart when it beats and my lungs when I breathe, Thor answers, frowning.

Frigga sighs and signs What else?

Thor points to all the pink spots on his chest where Loki's knife punctured him.

Frigga nods and sets to work on the tight new tissue.

When she drizzles oil onto his breast, Thor blushes for the first time in centuries and Frigga chuckles. Thor's toes flap back and forth happily.

Thor watches his mother's brow rumple in concentration. And she bites her lip in that way he loves - not just a little nip of skin held between the teeth; the entirety of her lower lip is gone. She looks like she's mocking someone who has an overbite. He used to tease her for it when he was small.

Her fingers prod at him until the flesh beneath them finally feels pliant and she looks up.

Where else? Frigga signs, and Thor smiles.

My hair hurts, Thor answers, and Frigga snorts, but leans over to run her fingers through his sunny locks until his eyelids begin to sag.

“Not yet,” she whispers. “I want you to eat as many of these apples as you can manage.”

Thor gives her a sleepy nod.

Did Idunn give you any trouble? Thor asks.

She took one look at my face and went off to busy herself with a sapling, Frigga signs.

Thor grins.

Frigga slices apples, sets them in a glass, and speaks a spell to liquify them. Thor drinks them dutifully. Afterward, Frigga signs I love yous and other endearments to her son before kissing his forehead and tucking him in.

Thor only takes one day off.

The next morning he heads back to the throne, keeping his pace slow, because the faster he walks, the faster his heart beats and the more breaths he must draw, and his pulse and respiration are still agony.

When he arrives, he looks at Loki and then points his thumb over his shoulder in the universal signal for Get out.

Loki nods, bows, and leaves.

Loki doesn't go far. He falls asleep on the large window ledge opposite the door to Valaskjalf, not wanting to be absent if Thor needs him to step in and relieve him.

The palace guards watch the prince and worry.

He hasn't been the same since he came back after Egil's death all those centuries ago.

And they can sympathize. All of their closest friends and many of their lovers have been fellow soldiers. 

They saw bitterness swelling in Loki.

He had granted a lovely gift to a lovely man. And it was a small one - the healers got away with greater feats every day. But the Norns punished this good deed, and afterward Loki seemed to lose his patience with the realms.

The guards had seen Loki slighted before, but where once the insults rolled off his back like water and elicited playful bits of seidr as punishment, after Egil they seemed to cling like tar and the magic that answered these offenses was no longer so sweet. Where flowers would have sprouted from the pockets of the perpetrator, snakes were now wont to slither. The softness in Loki's eyes slowly crystallized, like shards of ice, until he seemed a harder man than even Odin.

And now he looks a child, lost and hopeless, no longer waiting to be found.

After dark, Thor comes out and taps Loki's elbow to wake him, then throws his thumb over his shoulder toward the throne. Loki nods and makes his way back to Hlidskjalf.

He watches Thor.

Thor dines with Sif in her rooms.

But they speak to each other with their hands, fingers, gestures, and facial expressions, and Loki never read the books Thor gave him, so he has no idea what they're saying.

And Thor's room is still warded from sight by Frigga's seidr, so Loki can't see how his brother's injuries fare.

The next day is much the same. Thor's friends all speak to him in sign language and Loki is at a loss.

He stops sleeping and stays up reading the ASL books and practicing the gestures.

Weeks pass in this way.

Then months.

Loki still can't see into Thor's room but he knows his brother isn't sleeping much.

He can see it in the shadows under Thor's eyes, and some nights he can see his brother flying out his bedroom window on the handle of his hammer. Thor most often goes to the sea to swim, then sprints along the shore until the sun comes up. Then he flies home, half the realm away from where he began.

Or he goes to Midgard in plain clothes and visits the descendents of friends long gone, seeing beloved features on new faces. Hearing the echoes of familiar voices.

Loki has never understood how Thor has the strength to love mortals: it is guaranteed heartbreak.

Then again, Loki fared no better loving an Aesir.

Loki watches the eyes of men and women as they move over his brother's body. Even now that he's their king, the Aesir cannot manage to rein in their gazes; they rake over Thor's form.

Frigga comes one evening as Thor is leaving the throne and Loki is approaching to take his place. She invites Thor to dinner in her rooms and kisses Thor's cheek.

And over his mother's shoulder Thor sees Loki's face tighten. Sees his eyes begin to shine.

And they all know Loki earned it this time.

But Thor remembers when the differing treatment the princes received was unwarranted.

When Thor was of age, Odin took him hunting.

When Loki came of age, he was looking forward to the same rite of passage, but the Allfather never offered. It was Thor who took Loki on his first hunt. They felled a stag. Its antlers still hang over the door in Loki's room.

Soon after, Odin offered to instruct Thor in seidr, but Loki received no such invitation.

So Frigga taught her youngest son, and, as it turned out, she was a far better teacher.

Thor was given Mjolnir.

Loki received nothing.

And Loki saw the pattern that would last all his life.

Thor is still learning its shape all these centuries later.

And Thor thinks of Loki's jealousy. How it tends to elicit attempts at fratricide. He hopes his mother will kiss his brother again. And soon.

Thor knows the breeze from a bird's wings can start an avalanche, and the slights dealt to Loki would have stung a seasoned warrior. In hindsight he isn't surprised they ended up here; he's surprised things aren't worse.

And he knows that Loki loses all sense of proportion when it comes to the two of them. He understands that his slights to his little brother stung more than his praise could ever soothe. Because it's the same for him: a wound from a stranger has no teeth, but an injury from your beloved never entirely heals.

Thor also knows that separate is not equal. So he vows to shatter their separation.

Still, Thor is wary. Loki is cagey. Thor needs to approach slowly.

Thor's beauty is the only weapon he's willing to use. A blade without edges. He wields it mercilessly.

The next time Loki sits on the throne, he notices that the wards concealing Thor's room have been removed.

He sees his brother stretched out in bed with both hands beneath the sheets and his head thrown back.

Loki tries to train his gaze on Thor's chest to check for scars, but he's distracted by the motions beneath the blankets.

He attempts to force himself to focus on Midgard instead, but it proves to be an inadequate substitute.

The following day Loki remains on the throne while Thor and his friends build a stone fence to protect a newly planted field in Idunn's orchard.

Loki looks on hungrily.

Thor's tunic is clinging to him. His hair is falling out of a messy bun and framing his face. He's constantly bending and twisting.

It takes a week to finish the wall and then Loki watches as his god's-eye-view and his own eyesight align: Thor walks into Valaskjalf in a shirt soaked through with sweat, skin shining, breath fast.

Loki can see his brother's nipples, pink framed by gold, where the white linen is plastered to Thor's chest.

Thor hands Loki an apple, and Loki feels the drag of hot fingertips over his cool palm.

Loki can smell the air from the orchard in Thor's hair. The dust from the stones on his knuckles. The grass and soil on Thor's boots.

But mostly he can smell Thor. Stardust and rain.

Half of the apple is warm from Thor's hand. Loki eats it more greedily than the other side.

Not long after, Loki reminds himself Heimdall is always watching the realms for him.

He wards himself from sight and lets himself follow Thor around for an hour or so that evening.

Thor can sense it. Ever since Loki mended his wounds. Thor feels like a horse on a lead. It doesn't bother him. Quite the opposite. It amuses him. And soothes him. He likes to know where Loki is - to know that Loki is - after those months without him.

Loki thinks he's sneaking up on his brother, and Thor lets him believe it. And Thor uses it to his advantage. To chip away at Loki's patience and reserve.

Thor parcels out poses over the course of several weeks. Spends a little longer washing himself in the bath. Stretches farther. Moans a bit.

And every night Loki returns, regular as sunset, to watch his brother bathing.

Thor likes to angle himself to the side so Loki can't really see his ass or his cock properly.

Or he covers everything in suds.

Or he turns as he feels Loki circle the room in search of a better viewpoint, and on those nights Thor has to try very hard not to laugh, not wanting to let on that he knows his brother is spying on him.

The only time he gives Loki a good look at his backside is when he faces the wall to wash his cock, which usually turns into Thor stroking himself, moaning, and arching his back while Loki boils with want behind him.

On a night three months into this shared secret ritual, Thor can't feel Loki in the room.

He hastens through his bathing, throws on leggings and a tunic, and hurries to the throne.

Loki isn't there either.

Thor sits down and searches.

A volcano is erupting on Midgard.

And there he sees Loki, standing at its base, warping time to his will. The lava hangs in the air as the city below empties. Walls of ice creep up from the ground at the mountain's perimeter.

When the people are gone Loki releases his hold on time's throat and steps back to watch as the molten blobs of stone hit his frozen barrier. They hiss and pop and shatter and Loki takes great pleasure in seeing water bring rock to ruin so rapidly.

When Loki returns, Thor bows to him and cautiously begins signing T – H –

You can use whole words and phrases, Loki interrupts.

Thank you, Thor finishes. You did better than I could have. I can only dig trenches and bring rain.

Loki nods and the brothers' heads turn as their mother enters the hall.

Her pace is brisk and it makes her sons nervous, but their worry is needless.

“The heat isn't good for you,” she scolds, and Loki sighs.

“It's rather worse for Thor's mortals.”

Frigga tuts and looks Loki over.

There are tiny freckles burned into his skin from where droplets of ash singed him. She heals them quickly and then snatches her son into an embrace. Thor watches as Loki lifts his arms in tiny increments, as though they could sneak up on Frigga's ribs. Loki cautiously rolls a lock of her hair between the finger and thumb of his right hand while his left splays over the small of her back. He presses his nose into the hair behind her ear as his lips meet her neck. He will have her love with every sense propriety allows.

And still he braces himself a bit, expecting to be thrown off, but she only squeezes him tighter until he finally goes limp and then she rubs his shoulders, kisses his cheeks, smacks his bottom, and tells him to go to bed.

Loki sleeps for three days and it drives Thor crazy, but he resists the urge to wake his brother.

When Loki finally rises, Thor rewards him with tight leggings, a low-necked tunic, and a plate of desserts that are still warm.

Loki eats his sweets as he watches the realms.

The next night Thor has more gifts in store.

Loki resumes his ritual of covertly watching Thor wash.

Thor leans his forehead against the back wall of the bath and strokes himself with both hands, granting Loki an unrivaled view of his ass. But Thor doesn't finish himself off; instead he turns and walks up out of the bath behind a spectacular erection.

Loki gapes.

In his room the next morning Loki drags a fingertip through the seam of the slick folds between his legs. It feels so good he makes himself stop. Because it isn't what he wants. Not exactly. And Loki wants to get exactly what he wants. Not some portion or semblance of the thing. He's sick of second best.

The next night Thor does finish.

And no one has ever seen this, because Thor has always known he's not exactly normal, and he had no interest in having rumors – or truths - spread through the realms, garnering him unwanted reputations and attentions. He always pleased his partners, but held off on his own release, offering the excuse that it would take too long and he didn't want his lover to chafe.

When Thor comes, the quantity of semen that spills out of him and disappears into the bath is so stunning that Loki shouts and his seidr slips.

Thor looks up and locks eyes with his brother, still stroking his twitching prick.

Loki is hard.

And wet.

He's been getting used to his new shape. He still wears Aesir skin in the heat of Asgard, but he has taken to retaining the contours of his Jotun form. He likes the tingling warmth that radiates from his quim when he looks at his brother's body. Like he's melting.

Thor can smell it.

Undress, Thor signs, and Loki does.

Thor walks to the edge of the bath where his brother is standing. He looks up long legs. Squeezes firm calves. Bites a bony knee.

Loki's breath is fast and his hips are canted forward. He's pressing his cock to his belly with both hands.

Thor's fingers walk up the inside of Loki's thigh and slide through the slick that's seeping from his quim before softly brushing the folds, tickling and soothing in equal measure.

When Thor's fingers are soaked he brings them to his face and smears them across the skin at the base of his nose before reaching deep into his mouth and painting the stump of his tongue.

The scent is sweet and creamy while a savory bitterness greets what's left of his tastebuds.

Thor hums.

Loki turns away and heads for the door to Thor's room. Thor gets a too-brief glimpse of a perfect pair of buttocks.

Loki has made himself at home in Thor's bed by the time Thor has dried off and joined him.

The sheets are warm when Thor slides between them. And then Loki's limbs are frantic, grabbing and winding around him while Loki grinds desperately against Thor's cock.

“Fuck me, damn you,” Loki whispers. “What are you waiting for? Afraid you won't know what to do with a Jotun cunt?”

That fear is not mine, brother, Thor signs, and Loki tries to slap him, but Thor catches him by the wrist.

Thor wraps Loki's arm around his neck and leans in for kisses.

Loki seems pacified by this.

This is one of Thor's fears. Because he can't lick into his brother's mouth.

Luckily, Loki is quite happy to lick past Thor's teeth while Thor's lips squeeze tight around Loki's tongue.

They lie on their sides and mouth each other's necks. Thor pulls Loki's thigh high over his hip and follows it back down along the base of Loki's ass until his fingers slide across wet skin. He traces and spreads the plump lips of Loki's quim, slowly circling inward until his fingers are drenched before working two up into Loki's cunt.

Loki squirms and makes the most delicious little whine Thor has ever heard.

Thor feels and fucks Loki slowly with his fingers until he's confident Loki's body can comfortably accommodate his cock.

Then he rolls Loki onto his back and lines himself up.

“May I?” Thor asks, and the vowels are a bit breathy, but the words are unmistakeable.

“Yes,” Loki gasps, and Thor slides into him with one smooth thrust.

Loki's eyes roll back and his moan makes Thor shiver.

And Thor has never been more frustrated by his inability to speak.

Because he can say I and You without a tongue, but he can't say Love.

He can't says Yes.

He can't say Brother.

And he can't say Loki.

But he can say Oh.

And Ah.

And Mmmm.

And Babe.

Thor's voice makes Loki's limbs go all greedy again, tracing, squeezing, gripping, and sliding along Thor's form until arms and legs alike settle around Thor's middle. Loki will never cease to love the sounds of his brother's speech, even if most of them live only in his memory.

Thor moves in a lazy rhythm until Loki urges him on with a few bucks of his hips and some flexing of his legs. Thor picks up his pace.

Soon Loki is moaning to the beat of Thor's hips and his body is bracing.

When Loki's moans melt into chants of “Brother,” Thor wails and Loki whines.

Semen pulses out between their bellies as Loki stiffens and shudders.

Thor drives in hard one last time and his seed flows into Loki's cunt and back out around Thor's cock.

Loki can feel the wet heat everywhere. He reaches between his legs to gather some on his fingertips and then licks it off to Thor's approving sighs.

They lie panting in their sticky mess until they pass out.

When they wake they flop back into the bath and then limp out again to drink mead and water.

“I didn't ward the room,” Loki says, watching Thor carefully.

Thor shrugs.

“You don't care?”

Thor snorts.

I feel bad for Heimdall, Thor signs and Loki huffs.

“What about Mother?” Loki murmurs.

She likely knew before we did, Thor signs.

“And Odin?”

Thor shrugs again.

I imagine he put it together over the last century, Thor signs. And, anyway, I'm king now. And I'm not above pressing that point. It's the sole benefit of this position. I intend to use it.

Loki laughs.

Loki wanders through Thor's room, snooping. Thor just watches.

Loki finds a drawer full of black braids – the hair Thor cut from Loki's head for the century he slept.

He finds arrowheads saved from successful hunts they went on together.

A scarf and tunic Loki thought he lost.

The knives that he stabbed Thor with several months ago, still black with blood.

Loki takes these out and holds them rather tenderly and then realizes that probably looks odd.

“Egil made them,” Loki explains.

What did you two have in common? Thor signs.

“Very little,” Loki admits. “It was wonderful. We had so much to teach each other. He'd always wanted to learn how to dance, but didn't like to make a spectacle of himself at balls, so I taught him in my rooms and in his shop. Showed him how to make the salve for his back and speak the spell to set it working. Taught him a bit of elvish. Taught him to ride a war horse."

What did he teach you? Thor asks.

“All about knives. How to judge them, sharpen them, throw them, and eventually how to make them. Swords, too.”

Mother was fond of him, Thor signs. She talked about him all the time in the years you left.

“She's the one who introduced us.”

What?

“Sent me to collect a sword,” Loki says. “I asked why she couldn't send a servant and she said she was paying the smith with a salve and a spell in addition to gold. I asked why she wasn't delivering them herself and she said she was busy, which was a lie - she was on her belly in the grass in a garden, reading... and smirking. And when I knocked on Egil's door I wanted to kiss her and shake her in equal measure. He was so bloody gorgeous,” Loki laughs, and Thor smiles and nods in agreement.

“Limping and forging were playing havoc with his back,” Loki continues, “So I got to ruck up his tunic and rub ointment into his skin mere moments after meeting him. I told him he should swim - how it helped me when I'd broken my leg. Told him about a little lake I liked. Pond, really. Private. Made sure I was already there when he finally went. One thing led to another...”

Loki is laughing and crying.

He blames himself for Egil's death on two counts: mending the leg enabled Egil to go to war, and when they got there, Loki fought by his brother's side instead of Egil's.

But, even then, Loki knew that if he had fought by his lover's side and Thor had fallen, he would have thrown himself on his brother's pyre. There would be no surviving it.

Still, it leaves Loki feeling like a traitor.

And it's how Loki learned he can only erase his own writing - heal wounds he inflicted.

When he tried to clean up after the Norns, their vengeance was swift and merciless: Egil was dead a mere month after his leg was mended by Loki's magic.

“I can't restore your tongue, though I have the seidr to do it,” Loki whispers.

I know, Thor signs. I wouldn't let you anyway. I'll not go back on the bargain I made. I got what I wanted, and I can't afford to lose you again.

Loki nods.

They climb back into Thor's bed. Loki cleans and dries the impressive wet spot they put in the middle of the mattress and they lie face to face with arms and legs wrapped around each other. They kiss like children: silent presses of lips to lovely features.

Loki's large eyes look like joy and sorrow; Thor's look like the sea and sky.

They doze for a few hours and when they wake they're both hard and desperate.

Thor starts kissing and nipping his way down Loki's neck and Loki knows where this is going and rolls onto his back to welcome it.

His nipples tingle under the tugs of Thor's teeth.

His hips blush at the brush of Thor's beard.

The drag of whiskers along the base of his cock has Loki twitching.

When Thor runs the tip of his nose through the folds of Loki's cunt, Loki hums and spreads his legs wider to let Thor bury his face in wet flesh. Thor pulls and rolls the skin between his lips and slips a finger into Loki's quim to rub the front wall of his cunny.

Loki nearly squeals at this.

Thor grins and hunches over on his knees. He runs his lips and left fist up and down Loki's cock while his right index finger keeps petting Loki's quim.

After Loki comes, Thor sits up and tosses his head back to swallow the semen. It's the most satisfying sight Loki's eyes have ever seen: Thor, desperate to drink his seed, long neck stretched out, apple of his throat bobbing, and that gorgeous cock of his full and red and leaking in his lap.

Loki pushes Thor onto his back and then straddles his hips, slowly sinking down onto the thick heat of Thor's prick. Loki lifts himself up until just the head is still inside of him, and then slowly descends again.

And it's torture.

And they both want more.

Say your name for me, Thor signs.

“Loki.”

Say it again.

“Loki.”

Thor hums and Loki can feel Thor's cock throb inside of him.

Speak for me, Thor signs, and tugs Loki down flush against him.

“You want this,” Loki says, and Thor nods. “You've always wanted this. I've always wanted this.”

Thor hums against Loki's neck and his hands knead Loki's ass.

“You're gorgeous. You feel so good. I feel so good. Oh, Thor. Oh, Loki. Brother.”

And Loki comes, but Thor doesn't, because Thor is always slower on the second go, so Loki gets to ride him again.

And Loki fucks like something starving and wild. Like someone who's going to the gallows in the morning.

It's glorious.

And Thor has the stamina to let Loki fuck himself out. And when he's wasted on the mattress Thor climbs back on and fucks Loki again to remind him he's not going anywhere.

Afterward they lie there tracing words onto sweat-slick skin with warm fingertips. A simple game of alliteration.

Bathe, Loki writes, on the sticky peak of Thor's hip.

Belly, Thor scrawls, across Loki's navel.

Buttocks, Loki writes, letters stacked on Thor's brow.

Brain, Thor traces, on the length of Loki's cock.

Brute, Loki scratches, on the meat of Thor's bicep.

Beauty, Thor tickles, on the curve of Loki's ribs.

Babe, Loki teases, feather touches on Thor's cheek.

Brother, Thor writes, on the planes of Loki's breast.

“Brother,” Loki whispers, and tucks his head beneath Thor's chin.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I can't disable commenting, but I would if I could. Please pretend that I have. And please don't repost or distribute my writing.


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